"Here's a nice state of things," said Ann.
"Is anything wrong?" asked her mother.
"Well, I don't know whether you would call it wrong or right. Mr. Philip Scott sends me back my MS., with his criticism of it. I agree with most of the things he says: my language is too incorrigibly1 noble, my quotations2 are very frequent——"
"But if they're good quotations," Mrs. Douglas interrupted.
"Oh, they're good quotations. 'It was the best butter,' as the poor March Hare said. But what he objects to most is the sweetness of it. He says, 'Put more acid into it.'"
"Into me, does he mean?"
"I suppose so. Mr. Scott evidently finds you insipid3. We must change that at once. Tell me, now, about all the people you hated and who hated you."
Mrs. Douglas looked bewildered, and more than a little indignant. "Nonsense, Ann. I'm sure I'm very glad to hear you have made me sweet—anything else would have been most undutiful; and as for hating people, I never was any good at that. I couldn't keep up grudges4, though I was sometimes very angry at people. I dare say it was a weakness in my nature. But I think, if Mr. Scott is to be allowed to criticise5, I might be allowed to read my own Life."
"It's so dull," said Ann, looking discontentedly at the MS. "And you're not a dull woman, Mother! Rather a comic, really. See, read for yourself."
Ann plumped the packet on to her mother's lap and retired6 to the fender-stool with the Times; but she could hardly have done justice to the leaders, for her eyes often wandered from the printed page to the expressive7 face of her mother reading her own Life.
For half an hour Ann waited; then her patience gave out, and she leant forward and put her hand across the page.
"That's enough, Mums. Surely you can tell me now how you think it goes."
Mrs. Douglas smiled at her daughter. "Why did you do that? I'm enjoying it immensely, and——"
"Not stilted exactly, but if you would write in a more homely9 way, it might be better. Take the reader more into your confidence. I'm not clever enough to explain quite what I mean; but I think you are writing from the outside, as it were. Try to be more—is subjective10 the word I want? And don't say too much about me. After all, my life was my husband and the children. Write about your father and the boys. Never were brothers more loved by a sister. As for Davie—you brought him up."
Ann's eyes filled suddenly with tears, but in a minute she said lightly:
"You see, Mother, Mr. Scott asks what I am working up to in this Life of yours; how am I going to finish it, he wants to know. I hadn't thought of that. I was just going to leave loose ends—like life. I suppose there ought to be something—some idea that binds11 the whole thing together. Oh, it is all too difficult. I'd better burn all that I've written, and start again in an entirely12 new way. How would it do to put your life into scenes? The young girl in a royal blue silk dress and a locket and a black velvet13 ribbon, meeting her future husband. The wedding. A nursery scene—very effective this!—and then we might have scenes from your church life—you holding a Mothers' Meeting or a Girls' Club, or your first address to the Fellowship meeting. Do you remember you began (as you begin most things) with a deep sigh, and it sounded rather like Hooch, and Robbie said you reminded him of Harry14 Lauder?" Ann chuckled15 at the recollection, and her mother said:
"No wonder I was nervous. It was a great ordeal16 to speak before you scoffing17 young things. No; I don't like the idea of 'scenes.' I prefer it as it is. How far are you on?"
"I've got us all at school, and I was going to write about Davie being born. It was the summer after Rosamund died, wasn't it? I was at school when I got the news, and some of the girls condoled18 with me, and said a new baby in the house would be a dreadful nuisance, and I pretended to be bored by the prospect19, when really I could hardly contain my excitement. I had to get home for a week-end to see him."
"Poor little baby, to think that we were actually disappointed when he came. We had wanted another girl so much, and a fourth boy seemed rather unnecessary. Of course that was only at the very beginning. He was the plainest looking baby I ever saw, and we would not have had him in the very least different."
"I thought he was lovely," said Ann. "When Mark saw him for the first time, he said, 'Hullo, Peter,' and Peter he was called for years. When I came home from school he was about three years, and he became my special charge. You were so very busy at that time with the house and church work, as well as a great scheme that the Member of Parliament for the district started to teach working women how to make savoury dinners out of nothing. You were so keen about it that you tried all the new dishes on your family, and we nearly perished as a family. I can remember some of the dishes. Stuffed cod's head—one glance at its gruesome countenance20 was enough. Mock kidney soup, made with grated liver, which, instead of being the rich brown proper to kidney soup, was a sort of olive green. Sea-pie—so-called, Mark said, because the sea was a handy place when you had eaten it. I once went with you to see a demonstration21 by the principal cooking teacher, a buxom22 lady with quantities of glossy23 black hair coiled round her head. She showed us first what she called 'a pretty puddin'.' Instead of sugar she had grated carrots in it, or something surprisingly like that. Then she made shortbread, and when the cakes were finished and ready to go into the oven she wanted something to prick24 them with, and nothing was at hand. She wasn't easily beaten, for I saw her withdraw a hairpin25 from the coils on her head and prick them with that. When they were taken from the oven, and I saw that they were to be handed round and tasted, I unobtrusively withdrew. You had noticed nothing, and ate your bit quite happily."
"Oh, Ann, you always saw far too much. That's all nonsense about the things we made. Everything was excellent and very cheap, and the women in the district enjoyed the lectures amazingly, and constantly asked to have them repeated. I enjoyed them myself. Anything to do with cooking interests me, and I read every recipe I see."
"You are the sort of guest, Mother, who would appreciate a cookery book in her bedroom. It seems an odd taste to me. I can make porridge, smooth and soft, with no knots, and fry quite nice bacon and eggs, and I can make some rather smart meringuey puddings, and there I end. D'you remember how difficult it was to get Davie to eat when he was tiny? I had to feed him with every meal, or I don't think he would have eaten anything. He was such a thin little slip of a thing—like an elf. At one time I got so desperate about his thinness that I took to rubbing him all over every night with olive oil. What a mess it made of everything! We took tremendous care of him, didn't we? He never went out in his pram26 with only the nursemaid; I generally went, too, in case anything happened to him. It's a wonder to me that we didn't spoil him utterly27."
"He was a dear, ugly wee laddie," Mrs. Douglas said. "When Mark came down from Oxford28 he used to sit and study him from the other side of the table, and say, 'How has that child acquired such a Mongolian cast of countenance?''
"It was too bad," said Ann, "and Davie so admiring of Mark and all his Oxford friends. He used to amuse them a lot. I once overheard him explain to a man how he happened to live with us. 'I was playing quite quietly in heaven one day when God came up to me and said, "Peter, you've to go and live with the Douglases." I said, 'The Douglases! Good Lord!' The weary boredom29 in his voice was delightful30."
"Many a fright he gave me," said Davie's mother. "He picked up the most extraordinary expressions, and seemed to know when to use them with the most disastrous31 effect. By the time Davie was born I had grown tired of training, besides it was impossible to do anything with him when you older children, who should have known better, laughed at and encouraged him. He was a plaything to you all."
"Yes," said Ann; "there's something about the baby of a family that's different. The youngest never grows up, and to each of us Davie seemed almost more a son than a brother, and we never lost for him—even when he was grown up and a soldier—the almost passionate32 tenderness that we had for the little delicate boy. He was the delight of our lives, always. I remember when I arrived in India almost the first thing Robbie wanted to be told was Davie's latest sayings. He had a name for each of us peculiarly his own. Nobody ever called me 'Nana' but Davie, and why he christened Jim 'Ney' no one ever knew. But, Mother, it was only as a baby that he was so very plain. Later he developed a sort of horsey look, and we dressed him in a 'horsey' way, with a snooty bonnet33 and a fawn34 overcoat. I remember he got a very neat suit to go to a party at Anthony's house, his first real party—brown with a corduroy waistcoat—which he described in imitation of Mark and his friends as 'me blood waistcoat'—and short, tight trousers. As we dressed him we noticed that the shirt he was wearing had been patched at the elbow, but it was clean, and we didn't change it. When he came home he told how this one had sung and that one had recited, and 'What,' we asked, 'did you do?' 'Oh, me,' said Davie, 'I only took off my coat and showed them my patched shirt.'"
"It didn't matter at Anthony's house," Mrs. Douglas said; "the Cochranes were well accustomed to the vagaries35 of small boys. Anthony and Davie made a funny couple. Anthony was so solemn and fat, and so ashamed of Davie's eccentric behaviour. Davie's way of telling himself stories 'out loud,' and going round the room gesticulating wildly, really shocked Anthony, who was a most self-contained child. He never showed surprise, indeed he rarely ever showed emotion of any sort. When he and Davie were very small and met outside, each took off his hat to the other and made a low bow. At the first party we gave for Davie, the child was greatly excited, and talked without ceasing, jumping up and down in his chair. Anthony was sitting next him at the tea-table in a green velvet suit, and he stood this Jack-in-the-box behaviour as long as he could, then he turned very quietly, slapped Davie's face and resumed his tea without having said a word. And Davie bore him no ill-will; they were fast friends from that moment. D'you remember the two going alone to a party in a cab, and they were so thrilled about it that—we were told afterwards—they refused to do anything but sit in the hall and wait for the cab coming back?"
"I loved Anthony," said Ann. "He took things so calmly and was so speechless. One afternoon when he was with us people began to flock up to his front door, carriages and motors arrived, and we called to him to come and tell us what occasion this was. Anthony looked at the commotion36 for a minute, and then said, 'It must be a party,' and not another word passed his lips. One night we said 'Anthony will recite.' He said neither yea nor nay37, and we led him into the middle of the room. Still he made no protest, but stood, drooping38 like a candle in the sun, while large tears coursed quietly down his face. It must have been good for Davie to have such a phlegmatic39 friend. But I've seen Anthony wakened to enthusiasm. I came home once full of Cyrano de Bergerac, and, of course, told Davie all about it—I was so pleased when I heard Davie say after he was grown up, 'It was Nana made me like poetry'—and it became his favourite game. He and Anthony would crouch40 behind the sofa, 'behind the walls at Arras,' and then jump wildly up shouting, 'Cadets of Gascony are we...' Mother, I think you and I could talk for weeks on end about Davie...."
The door opened and Marget came in. "It's no' nine o'clock yet," she said; "but Mysie has rin oot doon to the cottages—what wi' the mune and the snaw it's near as light as day—an' I cam' in to speer about your Life, Mem. Hoo's Miss Ann gettin' on wi't?"
"Not very well, Marget," Ann answered for herself. "I'm going to finish it, but it's a much harder job than I expected."
Marget sniffed41. "I dinna see ony hardness aboot it. You hev a' the facts; a' that you've got to dae is write them doon."
"It certainly sounds very easy put in that way," Ann said; "but facts alone are dull things."
"But ony thing else wad juist be lees."
Ann began to laugh. "But, Marget," she protested, "I could put all the facts of Mother's life into one page—born, married, number of children, and so on; but that wouldn't be any sort of record to hand down to the children. You want all sorts of little everyday touches that will make them see the home that their father was brought up in."
"Everyday touches," Marget repeated; "d'ye mean what we hed for oor denners an' aboot washin' days? But thaes no things to write aboot. I could tell ye some rale fine things to pit in a book. One Setterday I let in a young man to see the maister—a rale weel pit-on young man he was, an' I showed him into the study, an' what d'ye think was the very first thing he said to the maister?"
Marget leant forward impressively. "He said that he had had a veesion to kill a man an' had been guided to oor Manse. Eh, I say! Sic a fricht I got when I heard aboot it! It juist lets ye see how carefu' ye should be aboot lettin' folk in even if they look respectable."
"And how did Father get rid of him?" Ann asked.
"You tell her, Mem." Marget nodded towards her mistress, and Mrs. Douglas said:
"He was a poor fellow whose brain had gone from over-study. Your father talked quietly to him, and said that Saturday morning was a bad time to come, and suggested that he should put it off till Monday. He went away quite peaceably, and your father went out after him and had him followed, for he was a dangerous lunatic. On the Sunday we were afraid to leave anybody in the house in case he came back, so we all went to church—even Jim the baby! On the Monday we heard that he was in an asylum42. It was a tragic43 case."
"We got some awfu' frichts in the Kirkcaple Manse," said Marget; "but I dinna mind nane in Glesgae; we had folk a' round us there. Eh, Mem, d'ye mind the day the maister brocht in the auld-claes wife?"
Mrs. Douglas began to laugh, and she and Marget sat and shook in silent convulsions while Ann demanded to know what they were laughing at.
At last Mrs. Douglas steadied her voice enough to say:
"You know your father was always being accused of not being cordial to people—he had naturally rather a dry manner. One day I was standing44 at the study window and saw an old-clothes woman—Mrs. Burt was her name—who came regularly to ask if we had anything for her, standing at the gate as if hesitating whether or not to come in. Then I saw your father approach, raise his hat, saw him go up to the startled woman and shake her warmly by the hand, and then conduct her into the house. 'Nell,' he shouted, 'here's an old friend to see you—Mrs. Beattie from Kirkcaple! She must have some lunch.'"
"Mrs. Burt turned to me a distressed45, red face, and I stared at her wondering which of us had gone mad.
"'Mrs. Burt...' I began, and then it dawned upon your father what he had done. There was a faint resemblance between the old-clothes woman and our old friend Mrs. Beattie, who had been such a help to us in the Kirkcaple Church. For a moment he was absolutely nonplussed46, and then he began to laugh, and he and I reeled about while Mrs. Burt looked more alarmed every minute. We recovered in time, and begged Mrs. Burt's pardon for the mistake, and saw that she had a good dinner; but your father said he had got enough of trying to be 'frank'——"
Marget wiped her eyes. "Eh, I say," she said, "it was an awfu' set oot."
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1
incorrigibly
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| adv.无法矫正地；屡教不改地；无可救药地；不能矫正地 | |
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quotations
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| n.引用( quotation的名词复数 )；[商业]行情（报告）；（货物或股票的）市价；时价 | |
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3
insipid
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| adj.无味的，枯燥乏味的，单调的 | |
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grudges
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| 不满，怨恨，妒忌( grudge的名词复数 ) | |
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5
criticise
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| v.批评，评论；非难 | |
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6
retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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7
expressive
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| adj.表现的，表达…的，富于表情的 | |
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8
stilted
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| adj.虚饰的；夸张的 | |
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9
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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10
subjective
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| a.主观(上)的，个人的 | |
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11
binds
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| v.约束( bind的第三人称单数 )；装订；捆绑；（用长布条）缠绕 | |
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12
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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13
velvet
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| n.丝绒，天鹅绒；adj.丝绒制的，柔软的 | |
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14
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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15
chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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16
ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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17
scoffing
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| n. 嘲笑, 笑柄, 愚弄 v. 嘲笑, 嘲弄, 愚弄, 狼吞虎咽 | |
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18
condoled
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| v.表示同情，吊唁( condole的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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19
prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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20
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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21
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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22
buxom
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| adj.（妇女）丰满的，有健康美的 | |
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23
glossy
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| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
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24
prick
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| v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛 | |
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25
hairpin
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| n.簪,束发夹，夹发针 | |
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pram
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| n.婴儿车，童车 | |
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27
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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28
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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29
boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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30
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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31
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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32
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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33
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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34
fawn
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| n.未满周岁的小鹿；v.巴结，奉承 | |
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35
vagaries
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| n.奇想( vagary的名词复数 )；异想天开；异常行为；难以预测的情况 | |
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36
commotion
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| n.骚动，动乱 | |
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37
nay
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| adv.不；n.反对票，投反对票者 | |
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38
drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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39
phlegmatic
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| adj.冷静的，冷淡的，冷漠的，无活力的 | |
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40
crouch
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| v.蹲伏，蜷缩，低头弯腰；n.蹲伏 | |
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41
sniffed
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| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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42
asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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43
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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44
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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45
distressed
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| 痛苦的 | |
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46
nonplussed
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| adj.不知所措的，陷于窘境的v.使迷惑( nonplus的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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